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What is RFID?

What is RFID technology and how does it work?

Here are a few definitions of what RFID is and stands for.

RFID stands for Radio-Frequency Identification. The acronym refers to small electronic devices that consist of a small chip and an antenna.

or this

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is the use of a wireless non-contact system that uses radio-frequency electromagnetic fields to transfer data from a tag attached to an object, for the purposes of automatic identification and tracking.

Read more below…

Global RFID roll-out and what you need to know

There are deferentially two sides to the RFID technology roll-out story.

Both sides are either trying to put the consumer at ease with RFID technology and its roll-out into our lives, or on the other hand showing the vulnerabilities surrounding RFID and NFC and this ‘contact-less’ technology.

If your interested in reading more about this you can purchase a fantastic book called ‘SpyChips’ that exposes what the plans are for this technology by governments, retailers and corporations wanting to track your every move via this technology. Well worth a read and pretty scary stuff.

One side of the story – The Financial organisations

On the one hand the financial & card issuing companies are saying they have implemented adequate steps to protect you and your data through encryption, transmission id’s & guarantees saying they will pay back any fraud from this ‘tap & go’ technology incurred by the customer.

We applaud the financial institutions by offering this protection. But it also makes us wonder if what we are being told is the entire truth.

By limiting transaction amounts, offering fraud guarantees and the like, kind of says to us that ‘yes there are concerns around the safety of using RFID technology or transmitting data across the airwaves, but we are rolling the technology out regardless.

Our view is if the technology was as safe as they claim, why then can we not spend more than the capped $100 on a card like other means of transactions for example with a pin number.

Why too has the US Govt stated that all government issued RFID enabled I.D.’s & building entry passes of certain security agencies & Dept of Defence have some type of RFID shielding protection.

Sounds a little suspect to us that the technology is NOT 100% secure don’t you think.

The other side of the story – The Hackers

On the other hand you have the ‘Hacking’ community who states that the whole RFID technology is open to hacking or skimming. This has been shown often live on stage* and summed up by Kirsten Paget, a well-known security researcher & “white hat hacker”for the consultancy Recursion Ventures

Whatever encryption or other security there might be, it does not matter, she says. The reader just spits out the number as if It’s the point-of-sales terminal, which is totally stupid. This is an embarrassingly simple hack, but it works.

Who do you believe?

Depending on who you believe, whether it’s the institutions that have already spent billions of dollars rolling out RFID technologies globally,

or

The hackers & security experts that say that RFID is a flawed and a vulnerable technology that can be easily comprised whatever level of encryption is employed, it is the nature of the hacking community to want to show the world that they compromised the technology and showed the flaws.

If there is an ounce of doubt, why risk your data either way.

Now we are properly just like you and don’t know who to believe But one thing is for sure we didn’t want to risk it either way.

That is why we developed ARMOURCARD, with our patented Active RFID Protection technology inside.

You simply place ARMOURCARD inside your wallet or purse and when a RFID reader tries to read your cards ARMOURCARD will instantly power up and jam the RFID signals and protect you and your credit cards and ePassports from being read.

If you value your personal data being kept private then you need Armourcard